In response to my discussion-list post "Scrap the iPads, Keep the Pianos, Get a Teacher #4," Pete Farruggio, Associate Professor of Bilingual Education at the University of Texas Pan American wrote to me [quoted with permission, bracketed by lines "FFFFF. . . . ."]:
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I was a bilingual teacher in California for 22 years. My working class Latino and African American kids benefited greatly from the 1986-era Apple program of putting computers in classrooms, via various generous grants. That was before Apple's current greedy regime, initiated by the comeback of Steve Jobs.
Now, in the South Texas borderlands, I'm witnessing a growing movement by school districts to put iPads into classrooms, with very mixed results. The most common use of these devices is to get kids to do standardized test prep with some pretty obnoxious "apps." Those few kids lucky to have progressive minded teachers are being exposed to internet surfing experiences that stimulate their natural intellectual curiosity and enable them to do real research with material and resources not available in the official curriculum materials. These benefits of technology result BECAUSE of good teachers, not in spite of teachers. But for the majority of the kids I've seen, the iPads are little more than exotic worksheets loaded with low-level, non-thinking software, and their net surfing includes heavy doses of online shopping sites.
I think this is what Jeff Lantos is getting at: technology is not a magic bullet, as depicted in Isaac Asimov's sci-fi short story about teaching machines . . . . .[["Profession" (Asimov, 1957)])]] . . . . . For most kids, no technology can beat the effect of a good, professional teacher for motivating and guiding learning. Yes, we need more good quality technology in classrooms; but FIRST we need competent, caring teachers, and lots of them.
REFERENCES [URL shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 29 Oct. 2013.]
Asimov, I. 1957. "Profession," Astounding Science Fiction, July; also the lead story in the 1959 collection "Nine Tomorrows." See (a) the Wikipedia entry "Profession (short story)" at <http://bit.ly/16jxmhw>; (b) the Wikipedia entry "Nine Tomorrows" at <http://bit.ly/16J1AHA>; and (c) "From here to the future. . . " [Redish (1988)].
Hake, R.R. 2013. "Scrap the iPads, Keep the Pianos, Get a Teacher #4," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives <http://bit.ly/1gVRfSv>. Post of 28 Oct 2013 14:32:57-0400 to AERA-L and NetGold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/HmD7BP> with provision for comments.
Redish, E.F. 1988. "From here to the future: The impact of the computer on college physics teaching," Academic Computing, November, pp. 18-49. Redish wrote: "Where are we going?. . . . One vision. . . . was described.. . . .by Isaac Asimov. . . . . . education was provided to the student by direct computer input to the brain. A student's entire education was provided on two 'education' days: one at age 8 when the student was taught to read, and one at age 18 when the student's profession was chosen by computer analysis of the student's brain structure and transferred. The transfer was extremely effective, the student becoming a perfect professional immediately."